Lewis Black Quotes

I feel like a teenager myself, so I appreciate it when the kids think you're all right.

I'm not interested in being one of those comedians who wants to look good and be this 'cool' funny person. I don't care how weird or ugly I look.

If you put me in 'South Park,' that audience is going to fall asleep in five minutes.

If I'm in something funny, I like to try and find some kind of serious line in it that people can relate to.

My favorite comedians are basically themselves onstage.

Everyone has a crazy old lady in their family like 'Mama.' No one ever comes up to me and says 'Mama' is just like them, so no one is ever offended by her. Even young people like to laugh at her. I think she helps kids appreciate their own grandmothers more.

I remember seeing McCoy Tyner in concert, and thinking that the music was incredible, but wanting to be invited in. I figured that humor was the way of letting the audience in. I've gotten a hard time about it, but I love to be funny onstage.

In comedy, though, it's good to get feedback from the audience about what they find funny.

You never know what the public is going to respond to or relate to.

'Big Bang Theory' is not my kind of show. It's not my humor. I don't like multicam comedies. I don't want an audience to tell me when to laugh.

I have seen and heard comedians who had really funny 'stuff' but yet could not make the people laugh; then, again - I have seen others whose stuff was anything but humorous, and the audience would howl with laughter.

I take a lot of pride in managing to be funny without having a victim at the end of my joke. I laugh at a really dark joke as much as the next person, but my jokes, I feel, don't have to hurt anybody to be really funny.

I try to do women's-point-of-view comedy. The joke is, 'This is what I think; there's the truth.' I try to think of stuff that's real broad, but the more personal it is, the more universal it is. All my friends go through the same stuff.

In stand-up it really helps to play yourself and talk about your own feelings. You cannot fail to be original if you're just talking about what you think about X, Y and Z. Unless you've got a twin brother who's also a stand-up.

I didn't plan to be the rude middle-class comedian. You write a certain type of joke that you find funny, and mine happen to be often rude. Yes, it's juvenile, but that's me.

Even when I lecture per se, I am a joke comedian, I can do the voices.

I would say I try to make my comedy really personal. I try to tell stories that happened to me, experiences from my life.

I'd like to think my performance is today. I never try to - it's so, as you know, watching me, I have a beginning, middle and ending. But every night the show changes and I relate to an audience and I relate to the young people.

Whether it's viewers of the show or readers of my columns and books, I'm consistently impressed with their wit, humor and insight. That goes for about 95 percent of the audience. The other five percent are why the 'Delete' option and restraining orders were invented.

I'm not a mean comic, I don't want to turn anybody off - I just want to give a point of view or my take on things that everyone can laugh at.

By the way, I'm funniest when I'm not being funny. I'm better to laugh at than with, pretty much.

When I'm playing comedy, I never do 'jokes.' Sometimes I'll deliver a line in a way I think is more likely to get a laugh, but all the best comedy is played straight. What's funny is the way it hits the world around it or the way it hits the other characters.

As far as what makes a viral video, then it's gotta be something that you've either never seen before, a fresh piece of comedy, or something that relates to something topical.

I think it's because it's so different and it takes risks. Plus, it's really smart humor. It gives the audience credit in terms of not needing to tell them when to laugh. I love that about the show. There's no laugh track.

I'd say Jon Stewart has remained funny the entire time. Jon always makes it funny first. And he's just, he's talking about serious things, but in a funny way. Other comedians will talk about serious things in a serious way, and then you don't know what's going on.